Cost drove 27 per cent of Australians, or around 5.5 million viewers, to axe one of their streaming subscriptions in 2023. A lot are now engaging in “subscription rotation”, says columnist NICK OVERALL.

ONCE upon a time people flocked to Netflix to be able to watch all of their favourite shows without having to wait a week for each new episode.

The “binge” model of television sparked a whole new way people enjoyed entertainment and formed part of the genesis of the streaming revolution.

But fierce competition in the market and higher subscription prices are eroding that very model as we know it, most notably on Netflix.

This week the platform has dropped part two of season four of one of its most popular series.

That’s Emily In Paris, a drama-comedy about an ambitious marketing executive from Chicago hired to bring an American perspective to a firm in the City of Light.

When the show first appeared on screens in 2020 it became one of those lockdown breakout hits, watched by 58 million households in the first month of its release, likely those eagerly dreaming of a trip to Europe at a time when it wasn’t allowed.

In the time since, the show has held on to its popularity thanks to its charismatic lead Lily Collins, even leading to a tourism boost for Paris when borders reopened. This boost became known as “The Emily Effect”.

The point is, Emily In Paris is a major hit and Netflix is exploiting that with its new release schedule.

The fourth season has been split into two halves. The first five episodes were released on August 15th and the second five episodes come out this week.

We’ve seen it done with some of Netflix’s most popular offerings, including Stranger Things, Bridgerton and, most recently, Cobra Kai.

Cobra Kai, a spin-off to the ’80s classic film The Karate Kid, has been broken into not two, but three different parts.

The third set of episodes doesn’t even have a release date yet, just some time off in the distance of 2025.

There’s been a string of reasons that float around as to why Netflix decides to do this.

Making episodes better, stretching out the hype, trying to make them eligible for multiple award seasons are all among the excuses.

Executives have never precisely revealed why, but it seems this is a move to try and stop viewers from cancelling their subscriptions.

Recent data shows people have been cutting back on streaming services due to the cost-of-living crunch.

Twenty-seven per cent of Australians, or around 5.5 million viewers axed one of their subscriptions in 2023, citing costs as the main reason. That’s come on the back of a string of price hikes that services continue to peddle out.

To counteract this, a lot of viewers are now engaging in “subscription rotation”.

This involves paying for one service at a time and then cancelling the subscription when they’ve finished bingeing their chosen show.

It also lets people make use of the one-month free trials that Netflix and other streaming services offer.

But by breaking their seasons up into multiple chunks over multiple months, it appears Netflix is actively trying to skirt this strategy.

It means people have to stay subscribed for at least two months to see the end of the new seasons of their favourite shows.

Ironically, Netflix was once built on the “binge” model of entertainment and part of why people were lured from traditional television.

Somehow though audiences have ended up with a model that is worse than both the “old way” and the bingeing method.

Netflix is pulling people out of the stories they’ve already waited so long for and leaving them in a frustrating limbo that ultimately tarnishes their own storytelling.

One has to imagine that writers are being told to tailor the series to this new format, messing with the natural plot arcs that seasons should take.

Once again, the platform is trying to get people to stay subscribed by ultimately offering a worse user experience.

The track record proves the better the shows, the better the audience. That’s the model that should be followed.